winui-setup

Purpose

Install and verify the prerequisites every other winui-* skill assumes. WinApp CLI 0.7 owns WinUI template discovery and installation through winapp new; do not install the template pack separately. The project's target framework may require a newer .NET SDK than the CLI's minimum.

[!IMPORTANT] Install per-user prerequisites (WinApp CLI) without asking, and tell the user what changed. Ask before anything that needs admin rights (UAC) or a large toolchain — the .NET SDK, Developer Mode, and Native AOT build tools. Windows Sandbox enablement is the user's to do.

This skill is idempotent: detect everything first, install or upgrade only what is needed, and print one final summary.

Steps

Detect everything

Run these checks together so the user sees the full state before anything changes:

$minimumDotNet = [version]'8.0.100'
$minimumWinApp = [version]'0.7.0'

# .NET SDK — project-mode winapp run requires SDK 8.0.100+
$dotnetSdks = @(& dotnet --list-sdks 2>$null) | ForEach-Object {
    $text = ($_ -replace ' \[.*$','').Trim()
    $parsed = $null
    if ([version]::TryParse(($text -split '-')[0], [ref]$parsed)) { $parsed }
}
$dotnetVersion = $dotnetSdks |
    Where-Object { $_ -ge $minimumDotNet } |
    Sort-Object -Descending |
    Select-Object -First 1
$dotnetOk = $null -ne $dotnetVersion

# WinApp CLI — require released 0.7+ for the migrated workflows
$winappCmd = Get-Command winapp -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
$winappVersion = $null
$winappPrerelease = $false
if ($winappCmd) {
    foreach ($line in @(& winapp --version 2>$null)) {
        $match = [regex]::Match(
            [string]$line,
            '^\s*v?(?<version>\d+\.\d+\.\d+)(?:-(?<prerelease>[0-9A-Za-z.-]+))?(?:\+[0-9A-Za-z.-]+)?\s*$'
        )
        if ($match.Success) {
            $parsed = $null
            if ([version]::TryParse($match.Groups['version'].Value, [ref]$parsed)) {
                $winappVersion = $parsed
                $winappPrerelease = $match.Groups['prerelease'].Success
            }
        }
    }
}
$winappOk = ($winappVersion -ge $minimumWinApp) -and -not $winappPrerelease

# Developer Mode
$devModeOk = ((Get-ItemProperty `
    -Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppModelUnlock' `
    -Name AllowDevelopmentWithoutDevLicense -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
).AllowDevelopmentWithoutDevLicense) -eq 1